2 black boxes from Iran's crashed plane recovered




TEHRAN, Iran – Investigators have recovered two black boxes belonging to a Russian-made jetliner that crashed shortly after taking off from Tehran, Iran's state radio reported Thursday.

All 168 people aboard the Caspian Airlines aircraft bound for Yerevan, Armenia, on Wednesday were killed.

The radio's report quoted chief investigator Ahmad Majidi as saying one of the two recovered boxes was damaged. It said the boxes — the plane's cockpit voice and flight data recorders — would likely be sent to the aircraft's Russian manufacturers for analysis.

It was not immediately known what caused the plane to crash, but witnesses said the plane's tail was on fire before it went down nose first, plowing a long trench into agricultural fields outside the village of Jannat Abad, and the plane was blasted to bits. Parts of the trench were up to four meters yards deep.

Bodies of the victims were taken in ambulances to Tehran Thursday for identification, Majidi said.

The crash was the latest in a string of air disasters in recent years that have highlighted Iran's difficulties in maintaining its aging fleet of planes. Iranian airlines, including state-run ones, are chronically strapped for cash, and maintenance has suffered, experts say.

U.S. sanctions prevent Iran from updating its 30-year-old American aircraft and make it difficult to get European spare parts or planes. The country has come to rely on Russian aircraft, many of them Soviet-era planes that are harder to get parts for since the Soviet Union's fall.

A team of Russian air accident experts was due to arrive in Iran on Friday to help in the investigation of the latest crash, civil aviation spokesman Reza Jafarzadeh told the semi-official news agency ISNA.

Majidi and Jafarzadeh said they were looking for a third black box, but it was not clear what the third unit recorded. Black boxes, built to survive crashes and intense fires, record a plane's performance, like speed and altitude, as well as communications between the cockpit crew or with air traffic controllers.

Most of the passengers were Iranians, including 42 from Iran's large ethnic Armenian community, as well as 11 members of Iran's national youth judo team.

Five Armenian citizens were among the dead, Armenia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement, along with two Georgians, including a staffer from the Caucasus nation's embassy in Yerevan.

Armenia on Thursday announced a one-day national state of mourning to mark the death of its citizens in the crash. Flags were flying at half-mast on government buildings and Armenian embassies abroad. Local radio and TV have canceled entertainment programs in a show of respect.

Iran's national airline sent a Boeing 747 to Yerevan Thursday to help take victims' relatives to Tehran.

Khristofor Sogomonian, whose father was among those killed, told The Associated Press at Yerevan's airport that "we're flying with other relatives to try to find anything and to commit his body to the soil."

Caspian Airlines' representative in Armenia, Arlen Davudian, said victims' relatives would be provided hotel rooms and transportation to the crash site.

Victims' relatives, he added, would be paid compensation of at least euro32,000 $45,216.

"I had hoped that she was alive, but now all doubts have fallen away," said Diana Sarkisian, an Iranian national whose cousin was aboard the plane as the first leg of a trip to her husband in the United States.

Associated Press reporter Avet Demourian in Yerevan, Armenia, contributed to this report.





A South Korean woman struggles with her umbrella in Seoul. AFP/Jung Yeon-Je

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